Microsoft improves ‘Office’ functionality in update

Microsoft issued the newest improvement to its productivity suite and various programs Sept. 22 across all platforms with the redesigned Microsoft Office 2016.

Office can now be used on PC, Mac, iPhone and Android to view and write. It also allows multiple people the ability to edit files and see who is making the changes in real-time.

In addition to the ease of editing, Word now features a history record that can restore documents from previous versions of the work.

Outlook has been rebooted in Office 2016, giving users easy access to files and documents through email and the ability to drop a file in an email quickly using the Cloud storage service.

If files are stored on the Cloud then a link can be sent directly to the receiver without the hassle of hunting it down on the desktop or searching for it on a flash drive.

“Microsoft’s use of the Cloud was a good try,” said Steffano Oyanader, junior biomedical engineering major. “But it is really annoying because you have to constantly be wired in for it to all sync.”

Oyanader said it is a major inconvenience when on the go or in a place where Internet is not readily available.

Prior to this update, Microsoft had not made any changes to its popular software programs in three years, something the company is hoping to fix with the Cloud as its focal point.

Changes in Excel and PowerPoint have been minor over the years, despite the two programs’ levels of popularity. Microsoft’s Excel now has a snapshot function which allows users to take a screenshot of a page and easily share it on any medium, so that file space is saved and efficiency is improved.

“I mostly use Microsoft Office for Excel in my engineering classes,” said Christopher Chen, sophomore electrical and computer engineering double major. In class, Chen is able to do exactly what is needed with Excel’s different features and functions according to his professors’ instructions.

PowerPoint especially has had trouble supporting different file formats over the years and Microsoft’s answer to this comes with minor changes to the program’s design and format theme to make transitioning across formats as seamless as possible.

The update has provided users with a better interface, storage services and a more efficient experience than previous Office products, though there is still room for more improvements to be made.

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